Great writers have ever been noted for their tenacity of purpose. Their works have not been flung off from minds aglow with genius, but have been elaborated and elaborated into grace and beauty, until every trace of their efforts has been obliterated. Bishop Butler worked twenty years incessantly on his "Analogy," and even then was so dissatisfied that he wanted to burn it. Rousseau says he obtained the ease and grace of his style only by ceaseless inquietude, by endless blotches and erasures. Vergil worked eleven years on the Æneid. The note-books of great men like Hawthorne and Emerson are tell-tales of the enormous drudgery, of the years put into a book which may be read in an hour. Montesquieu was twenty-five years writing his "Esprit des Lois," yet you can read it in sixty minutes. Adam Smith spent ten years on his "Wealth of Nations." A rival playwright once laughed at Euripides for spending three days on three lines, when he had written five. hundred lines. "But your five hundred lines in three days will be dead and forgotten, while my three lines will live forever," he replied.

Ariosto wrote his "Description of a Tempest" sixteen different ways. He spent ten years on his "Orlando Furioso," and only sold one hundred copies at fifteen pence each. The proof of Burke's "Letters to a Noble Lord" (one of the sublimest things in all literature) went back to the publisher so changed and blotted with corrections that the printer absolutely refused to correct it, and it was entirely reset. Adam Tucker spent eighteen years on the "Light of Nature." A great naturalist spent eight years on the "Anatomy of the Day Fly." Thoreau's New England pastoral, "A Week en the Concord and Merrimac Rivers," was an entire failure. Seven hundred of the one thousand copies printed were returned from the publishers. Thoreau wrote in his diary: "I have some nine hundred volumes in my library, seven hundred of which I wrote

myself." Yet he says he took up his pen with as much determination as ever.

The rolling stone gathers no moss. The persistent tortoise outruns the swift but fickle hare. An hour a day for twelve years more than equals the time given to study in a four years' course at a high school. The reading and re-reading of a single volume has been the making of many a man. "Patience," says Bulwer, "is the courage of the conqueror; it is the virtue par excel lence, of Man against Destiny of the One against the World, and of the Soul against Matter. Therefore, this is the courage of the Gospel; and its importance in a social view- its importance to races and institutions— cannot be too earnestly inculcated."

Want of constancy is the cause of many a failure, making the millionaire of to-day a beggar to-morrow. Show me a really great triumph that is not the reward of persistence. One of the paintings which made Titian famous was on his easel eight years; another, seven. How came popular writers famous? By writing for years without any pay at all; by writing hundreds of pages as mere practice-work; by working like galley. slaves at literature for half a lifetime with no other compensation than fame. "Never despair," says Burke; "but if you do, work on in despair." "He who has put forth his total strength in fit actions," says Emerson, "has the richest return of wisdom.”

"There is also another class," says a moralist, "chiefly among the fair sex, who are incapable of mak ing up their minds, even with the help of others; who change and change and repent again, and return to their first resolution, and then regret that they have done so when too late. They hesitate between a walk and a drive, between going in one direction or another, and fifty other things equally immaterial; and always end the matter by doing what they fancy, at any rate, is the least agreeable and eligible of the two. Of course

this disposition, shown in these trifles, will be shown in more important matters; and a most distressing and unfortunate disposition it is, both for themselves and those around them. Now, the only remedy for such a turn of mind is resolutely to keep to the first decision, whatever it may be, without dwelling on its advantages or disadvantages, and allowing any useless regrets after the thing is done; and even if a mistake is often made at the outset, from want of the habit of ready and unwavering judgment, it will be far less mischievous than 'weak and wretched indecision."

Success is not measured by what a man accomplishes, but by the opposition he has encountered, and the courage with which he has maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds, as Alexander learned by defeat the art of war.

The head of the god Hercules is represented as covered with a lion's skin with claws joined under the chin, to show that when we have conquered our misfortunes, they become our helpers. Oh, the glory of an unconquerable will!

Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof,
And blench not at thy chosen lot;
The timid good may stand aloof,
The sage may frown, yet faint thou not :
Nor heed the shaft too surely cast,
The foul and hissing bolt of scorn;

-

For with thy side shall dwell at last,
The victory of endurance born.

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

We have not wings, we cannot soar ;
But we have feet to scale and climb,
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summit of our time.

BRYANT.

LONGFELLOW

CHAPTER XXII.

A LONG LIFE, AND HOW TO REACH IT.

Not in the world of light alone,

Where God has built His blazing throne,
Nor yet alone on earth below,

With belted seas that come and go,

And endless isles of sunlit green,

Is all the Maker's glory seen

Look in upon thy wondrous frame,

Eternal wisdom still the same.

HOLMES.

Pile luxury as high as you will, health is better. -JULIA WARD HOWE O blessed health! thou art above all gold and treasure; 't is thou who enlargest the soul, and openest all its powers to receive instruction and to relish virtue. He that has thee has little more to wish for; and he that is so wretched as to want thee, wants everything without thee. -STERNE

No chronic tortures racked his aged limb,

For luxury and sloth had nourished none for him.
BRYANT, The Old Man's Funeral

"Health and cheerfulness make beauty."

The nearer men live to each other, the shorter their lives are. - DR. PARR. Some men dig their graves with their teeth.-SYDNEY SMITH.

"Nor love, nor honor, wealth, nor power,

Can give the heart a cheerful hour

When health is lost."

The stomach begs and clamors, and listens to no precepts. And yet it is not an obdurate creditor; for it is dismissed with small payment if you only give it what you owe, and not as much as you can. - SENECA.

Shut the door to the sun and you will open it to the doctor.

Joy, temperance, and repose,
Slam the door on the Doctor's nose.

'Tis the sublime of man,

ITALIAN PROVERB.

LONGFELLOW.

Our noontide majesty, - to know ourselves,
Part and proportion of a wondrous whole.

COLERIDGE

THE greatest artist the world has known painted a picture, the most beautiful ever seen. Day by day, for